


All the Kingdoms of the World

by LindenE



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Relationships aren't the main focus but definitely there, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindenE/pseuds/LindenE
Summary: What if Caleb had gone in to talk to Isharnai before Jester did?
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast, Nott & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 5
Kudos: 76





	All the Kingdoms of the World

Again, the devil took him up onto an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and said unto him, “All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”  
Matthew 4:8-9

The door closed behind him with a thud that seemed to force the air out of the room with it.

Inside, the room was dense and cluttered with books and papers, broken lanterns and bones, jars and vials holding unidentifiable liquids and (more horrifyingly) solids. Isharnai crouched or sat at the central table, regarding him with hilarious eyes, but saying nothing. Sucking in a breath and his courage, he slowly approached.

“Well, what’s this?” the hag cackled. “Misery enough to share, certainly. You carry it with you like a fog. Someone with so deep an understanding of the enjoyment to be found in exploring the depths of unhappiness ought to be able to come up with a... unique experience to share.” She regarded him narrowly. “You understand that your existing misery, intense though it may be, does not have the... deliciousness of fresh pain? What can someone like you, accustomed to wallowing in the mud of your past, have to offer that’s new and clean? Do you even know?”

The atmosphere was almost unbelievably oppressive in the small cottage, and Caleb forced himself to remember why he was there. Nott. Nott, the person who’d brought him back into the real world from the grey fog of despair and anger he’d inhabited for almost five years, who was still the single point of comfortable contact, and who desperately needed to regain herself and her family. He had to remember Nott.

Isharnai was watching him, her hands moving over the runes laying on the table before her, and they shifted. Perhaps she had touched them, perhaps not. Studying their new positions, she seemed seized with glee, looking back up at him through narrowed eyes. “I can see that you have some rudimentary understanding of the threads that surround us. Of the paths unwalked, possibilities un-grasped, lives unlived. If you have nothing to offer now, perhaps seeing where your threads could lead you would give you some ideas.”

Caleb swallowed and forced his voice to a calmness he was far from feeling. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Isharnai smiled widely. “Sometimes the most delectable misery comes from knowing what might have been, but wasn’t. Knowing what you could have achieved, but didn’t. From studying and dissecting and fearing your failures. The runes see in you one who has seen the threads of possibility, and understands there are many – no, infinite futures, and multiple threads of possibility lead us from now, to what can, might, will be.

“Let me show you one of those threads? Not a certainty, not even a probability, but a solid thread from now to then, linked to you most surely. This is a time thread that exists, that could become the reality you live, and that you could choose to sever, to offer the sundering as the price for your friend’s existence. For all of your friends’ continued existences.” 

“Show me,” he got out, not knowing whether he believed her. His vision went black suddenly, and in panic he flailed forward, reaching for anything to hold onto, when it cleared as suddenly as it had left, and he was looking at the throne room of Castle Ungebroch, filled with dignitaries in sumptuous robes. A ceremony seemed to be taking place near the throne itself. Blinking, he found his vision centering in on the throne where sat King Bertrand Dwendal, looking slightly older than he had last seen him, but still recognizable. As always, he was surrounded by his advisors and the members of the Cerberus Assembly, robed and arrayed almost as splendidly as the king himself. And among them... he blinked, disbelieving. Among them stood himself.

Forgetting to breathe, he studied the faces more closely. Ikithon was nowhere to be seen, nor Da’leth or DeRogna. He recognized a few from the portraits seen at the Soltryce Academy long ago: Lord Uludan and Doolan Tversky. And he stood among them, at the right hand of the king. Though he could hear nothing but the sound of rushing wind, he saw the King’s head turn toward the vision of himself, asking a question, and saw himself bend down to speak near the King’s ear. The King nodded, apparently satisfied, and the vision suddenly whipped past, out of sight in a tattered whirl of light and color.

Isharnai was peering at him, a wide grin on her face. “A pretty picture,” he got out, trying to keep his voice level. “Very alluring to one seeking power, I presume. I do not.”

Isharnai cackled gleefully. “You misunderstand. This is a possible future, a peacetime where those who have wronged you and your Empire have been cast out and you have the chance to reshape what the Empire will become in their absence.”

“It’s a pretty picture. It is not a possibility.”

“I assure you, it is. My runes don’t deal in fantasies. They lock into the threads around us and follow a possibility, not a dream. This line most assuredly leads from the present to that future. It is only one thread of many... but it is a strong one. “ She waited, but Caleb remained silent, trying not to let his face show the emotions warring within. “There are, of course, other threads of possibility. Shall I show you another? I see two more strong threads in the web leading to your future. Shall we explore together?” And without waiting for his response, her hands moved over her runes once again and his ears filled with the sound of wind as colored stars and trailing wisps of color whipped past. 

It cleared to reveal what he recognized as himself, seated at a worktable in what seemed like a small, cozy cottage. Firelight fell warmly on comfortable armchairs, a candle shed bright light on the books before him, and a woman’s figure approached from the side to set a steaming tea mug in front of him. He saw himself, smiling, look up into the face of -- his mother, much older than he remembered, gray hair and lined face, but happy-looking. Content. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, then turned to smile as his father, equally aged, came in through an outside door shaking snow off his hat and coat as he greeted them both.

He gasped, unable to speak as the vision whipped away to reveal Isharnai’s face closely peering into his own. “A convoluted thread, that one. Fraught with tangles and knots, but a thread nonetheless. And perhaps... the most desired? Or perhaps – this one? Save the best for last?” And once more the winds whipped his vision away through vast dark chasms of time, coming to rest on a bright stretch of beach, the ocean stretching away to the horizon, meeting in an almost invisible line with the sky. Along the golden sands, a couple strolled, his arm round her shoulder, her arm encircling his waist, their whole posture leaning towards one another in a way suggesting they felt themselves a whole, rather than two parts.

Because he now expected it, he recognized quickly the red-brown hair he knew from his own mirror, but came slower to the realization that the woman’s figure had blue skin, and dark hair and horns, and a tail waving in contented circles behind her as they wandered. “Jester,” he thought wonderingly, as she turned to the vision of himself, and the side view of her figure revealed her full pregnancy as she reached up on tip-toe to pull his head down and kiss him as though the time they spent physically apart was unreal, and their connection the only true reality. He found himself leaning forward, almost feeling her lips on his, as the vision of his future self wrapped his arms gently, protectively, around the tiefling pressing to him and relaxed into her body as if it were home. 

The pull back into the present this time was almost painful, shocking, like a dash of cold water after a warm bath. He blinked at Isharnai, blinked away what might have been tears if he were a different, less hardened and ruined man. She smiled slowly, broadly, and nodded at him. 

“You have to know what you are giving up for it to hurt. Suppositions and what-ifs aren’t enough. Be assured, if you agree to allow me to cut the thread to one of these, it was a real future you sacrificed, not a dream or hope. It was a possibility, and you would be abandoning it to wither and die, knowing what you could have had.

“But to satisfy me, it has to be the most desired, the one you want most. And you need to consider the other people whose lives it would impact: your nation, your parents, your... love? Are you willing to inflict this upon them as well as yourself? Do you have that right? And if you are... which future is thrown into the pyre? Which do you strangle unbirthed?

She cackled. “I am not greedy. I don’t demand all. Just one. Choose one. One leaves your nation to evil, one leaves your greatest wrong unrighted, and one leaves you alone. I don’t promised you any of these as certain, mind you, but your decision would most certainly remove one thread from the skein of the future.”

Caleb swallowed. “Why should I believe any of this is true? Perhaps you only show me what you think I want to see.”

“Perhaps so,” said the witch happily. “Yes. You are welcome to believe so. In which case it would cost you nothing to save your goblin friend, would it? So choose. Choose if you want her curse lifted. Accept the transaction and live your life.” She leaned forward, seeming to consume the interior of the chamber, looming over and down upon him, one long hand reaching out to take his. 

His own remained behind his back. “I need to think about this. To consider what you have shown me and my choices.”

“Oh, indeed! Take your time, there’s no rush. Your friend’s been a goblin this long, a little longer won’t hurt anything.” She grinned at him. “Besides, your indecision is creating it’s own misery for me. It’s lovely. I look forward to more.” The hand gestured at the door, which opened as suddenly as it had closed. 

Blindly, Caleb stumbled through it, to the waiting faces of his friends. Almost involuntarily his eyes found Jester’s and he watched her read something in his face. Without a word, she pushed past them all and went in.

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago, I made a promise to myself not to depart (too far!) from canon in my writings, but sometimes an idea gets in your head and won't go away, so this is a little speculation on a "what-might-have-been". Unfortunately, we'll never know what actually would have happened...


End file.
